On The Outside Looking In

Technology Is Manipulating The Future Of Medicine, Xbox

Norfolk Will Be Home To Simulation Center

NORFOLK — One day, a person who needs surgery could undergo a computerized body scan that allows the doctor to virtually practice the operation on that person's organs before making a single cut.

Medical school students and military doctors might train with equipment that mimics the feel, sound and smell of specific illnesses and injuries. A system built into a T-shirt could measure a person's heart rate or assess the damage from a stab wound to the chest.

The development and testing of such technology will take place at the National Center for Collaboration in Medical Modeling and Simulation, a joint project of Eastern Virginia Medical School and Old Dominion University.

The Norfolk-based schools announced the launch of the project Monday with an initial $200,000 in federal funding garnered by U.S. Sens. John Warner and George Allen and Rep. Ed Schrock.

Medical experts consider computer simulation an ideal way to better train and better prepare doctors, speed up the diagnoses of various diseases and shorten time in operating rooms, according to R. Bowen Loftin, director of simulation programs for the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center, part of ODU.

The legislators also appreciated the center's potential for protecting against biological terrorism by plugging the latest information about chemicals such as anthrax into computer data -- helping to distinguish the symptoms from pneumonia or the common cold -- and allowing medical personnel to develop responses to such attacks.

The center's most important role, its founders said, is to figure out whether these devices work and make them work better. "We don't have a lot of good studies of how good this type of technology is," Loftin said.

That's where the Hampton Roads economy could see benefits.

Companies now developing the technology might want to set up shop nearby and use the center's research. Spinoff ventures could grow out of discoveries made at the center.

Computer-game developers already want to incorporate its human-anatomy technology into the latest systems, such as the Xbox.

The $200,000 is just a drop in the bucket of the $5 million that the schools say they need to get the center running at full speed. For now, the center will use existing ODU buildings and staff.

Both schools bring expertise: ODU operates the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center in offices on campus and in Suffolk, where it helps the military train and prepare for possible war scenarios; EVMS has perfected the "standardized patient" method of training, for which a healthy person portrays a patient with a problem.

With the center's technology, a doctor-in-training could turn from that evaluation to a three-dimensional "virtual human," complete with layers of organs and areas colored blue to indicate problems.

"Once it's in a digital form, you can take that image and manipulate it," said C. Donald Combs, vice president for planning and program development for EVMS.

Now in its early stages, the "virtual human" involves the painstaking transfer of images from magnetic resonance imaging equipment and computerized tomography, or "CAT," scans. To see the recreated computer versions, people must wear bulky, plastic, 3-D glasses.

The technology is at least a decade away from common use in doctor's offices and hospitals, Combs said. But today, the center has a $15,000 "touch/feel" device with a sensitive mechanical arm that would-be doctors can use to practice inserting a catheter or using a scalpel. Eventually, Loftin said, the technology will provide "the whole range of senses that must be brought to bear when a doctor examines a patient."

Carolyn Shapiro can be reached at 247-4787 or by e-mail at cshapiro@dailypress.com